Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

Mr. Blue sat in a comfortable armchair watching Mrs. Blue getting it on with Mr. Lime and Mrs. Indigo. His head bowed to his lower neck and his eyes narrowed. He pressed his hand into the fold of his lap out of reflex, but felt nothing stir. He stood up and went to the vend-machine, ordering up a large cheese pizza. It was in his hands within five minutes, and although he felt a slight rumbling in his stomach, he looked at the pizza as if it were made of excrement. He tossed it in the waste slot.

He ordered a chocolate-caramel-mocha malt. It appeared with whipped cream and a glistening red cherry, things he also loved, but hadn’t ordered. The malt ended up in the waste slot, too, and Mr. Blue trudged to his room, wondering if he had some virus. He pressed the button labeled ‘HAPPY’ three times, and three different colored pills plopped happily out, accompanied by passages of his favorite music. He swallowed them without water. They tasted bitter and left a bile-like aftertaste in the back of his throat. He grimaced, waiting for the happiness to overwhelm him.

Nick Johnson read the memo that had been placed on his desk in a crimson envelope. He frowned, the words like the third strike of the ninth inning of those long forgotten baseball games. The words like the days just before the Great Separation. The words a foreboding. A directive hinting at the shape of the future. Hinting at the tint, at the hue of the future.

The words — “Prepare for Directive Thirty-Nine” — taking on the same color as the envelope in which they arrived.

As he read the words over and over, the firm hand of the director clamped onto his shoulder like the grasp of ice on a long, potholed dirt-black road.

The director’s eyes said to Nick Johnson — “Into my office. Now.”

A hand clasped firmly on Mr. Blue’s shoulder as he ran his fingers gingerly along that strange crack in the multi-colored wall of the cafeteria. He turned and looked into the flush face of Mrs. Blue. One of her hands was busy between her legs, the other sliding from his shoulder down to his chest, to his belly, to the place between his legs….

“Hey, mister,” Mrs. Blue said seductively. “How about we go back to our room and take out the good ol’ cat-o-nine.” Her voice was hungry. Erotic. Moist.

Yet Mr. Blue gently pushed her hand away. “Not right now,” he said.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing.” Mr. Blue knew that if he told her what was wrong, something bad might happen, although he didn’t quite know what that might be. Bad was a foreign word. Nothing ‘bad’ ever happened to anyone here, ever, but there was the word. The word existed. BAD. Usually used playfully in the many sex games, but now the word had a different meaning — bad — a meaning he associated with the feeling in his gut, in his heart, in his brain.

Badddddddd……

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said again, feigning a smile. To prove it, he placed a hand between her thighs until her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her lips parted into a prolonged “Aaaaaaahhhhhhh………”

The ColorMaster had never really been all that interested in color. The program’s colors were all inserted after the actual recording had been done, the original disc it was put on being itself black and white until digitally manipulated.

Never had been interested in color until he saw the color red flow from his wrists like air currents into the running water of the sink he held his throbbing hands into. He became suddenly fascinated with it, the color of blood flowing from his wrists in red, blossoming banners. The blood danced in the sterile sink waters. It polluted the ionized, fluoridated water so deliciously, so finally, so — colorfully.

He looked around his room, noticing for the first time the other colors there. Even the dirty, dusty grays began to fascinate him. Even the color of the world fading quickly from his line of vision, the fade itself becoming a color, distinct, clear, haunting, creating a longing, a satisfaction, a finality…

“It seems that there has been a lack of communication between you and I,” the director said to Nick Johnson. The director’s chair was twice the height and width of the chair Nick Johnson sat in.

“A lack of communication?” Nick smiled a perspiration-inducing smile. “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter what I mean. The meaning has always been classified. But what I say should be as clear as black and white. Whatever I say is as simple as saying turn left or point up or stand on your tiptoes. They are directions. Orders. To be followed implicitly. The meaning of those orders has nothing to do with you.”

“I see,” Nick said.

“Whether you see or not makes no difference to me.” The director’s chin jutted out accusingly. “You are to report to the Melanin Alteration room in ten minutes. Enough time to take a shit and smoke a cigarette.” The director smiled.

Nick smiled, then stood, trying to lunge at the director. But of course, the force field between them only sent a numbing shock to Nick’s abdomen and temple as he was propelled back into his seat. He shook his head, stood up resolutely, and walked to the door, his head held high, but his eyes focused on the bridge of his own pale, white nose.

Mr. Blue’s fingers were once again roaming the rectangular edges, misty gray/black/midnight-blue, the edges of the secretive doorway that hadn’t been opened for years. But suddenly it creaked open, to the amazement of Mr. Blue.

For the few seconds it took for the door to swing slowly open, he thought — what have I done? I was only running my fingers along those lines, feeling the — mystery…

But by then, the door was open and a figure stood there, gently grabbing a hold of Mr. Blue’s arm, saying, “Come with me, please.”

“Yes. Certainly,” Mr. Blue said. “Most certainly.”

He walked for the first time — the first time, at least, that he could remember — out onto the steps (steps?).

“What color are you?” asked Mr. Blue, to the man who helped him walk shakily down them to the floor below.

They got into an elevator and drifted down like an angel to another floor so many levels below, so many countries away, it seemed. As Mr. Blue walked into a room with a sign above that said “Melanin Alteration Room” he passed a man who was his same color. A blue the color of a ripe, bruised blueberry.

“Hello,” Mr. Blue said, surprised.

But the man did not answer. He only looked at him confused.

Mr. Blue swallowed a pill given to him by a friendly man dressed in a pale green robe, and when he woke up again, his skin was a strange yellow-pinkish color.

“Am I dying?” was the first thing he asked to the smiling man in the pale green robe.

“No,” the man said. “You’re just fine.”

Mrs. Blue of the forty-first floor of building #812 squinted at the five by five meter screen in the commons area as Mr. Beige and Mr. Chartreuse were each having a go with her.

The ColorMaster looked a bit different, she thought. He looked — familiar? But her orgasm overtook her as Mr. Blue walked up to her and placed a hand on her breast through the mass of moving flesh already surrounding her.

“Are you all right?” she asked him, her voice out-of-breath, her blue skin darkening a bit.

“Yes. Of course. Why do you ask?”

“You just look — I don’t know — not quite yourself today.”

He grinned, squeezing the flesh of her upper thigh. “I’m quite all right. Quite fine, indeed,” he said. He kissed her, and although his saliva tasted a bit different, a bit off, Mrs. Blue said nothing as he entered her and they fell to the floor, along with Mr. Beige and Mr. Chartreuse, one big sweating heap of multi-colored flesh.